I've been watching the History Channel a lot this week on their special highlighting all 47 Presidents we've had. It calls itself the "ultimate guide" to the Presidents, but it's mostly a great primer on all the Presidents.

Anyway, it's been a while since we've done this.

But who are the best 5 Presidents in American history in your opinion, and who were 5 of the worst? Do your best to explain.

No more earth shattering then regurgitating whatever you heard in school today. You seem upset, maybe you need some pastoral loving care from your priest...oh wait you have already had that...sorry

__________________“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion"
Steven Weinberg~

I don't understand the love affair with Lincoln. He completely ignored the constitution. The man treated the executive branch as a dictatorship. He pushed the country into a civil war. He completely disregarded civil liberties. Lincoln's presidency was the closest this country has ever been to tyranny. Had he not been assassinated, we probably wouldn't be a free country today.

Without Lincoln we would have no country. We would be a tier III state of England.

The industrial revolution would have ended slavery just as certainly as the war did, only without half a million casualties.

That is a gross oversimplification:
1) War had become an inevitability. It was an issue that was punted on for years by Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan. In a very inept manner that pitted the South against the Union. The Confederacy rebellion had been brewing and likely was inevitable, unless the Union granted major concessions that we would to this day, very much regret. Conflict was inevitable. And the Union had to balance out resisting conflict vs. squashing it -- being weak and sitting back and doing nothing was NOT an option. Lincoln chose to squash it once and for all. Devastating, but think about the implications of if he would have lost.
2) The industrial revolution argument is one that is nice in theory, but it isn't backed by scholars. There is no proof that the southern cotton trade was declining anytime soon, in fact scholars believe the trade was growing and likely would have continued on for years. The Civil War accelerated the path to phasing out slavery, it eliminated outright the disgusting practice of slavery, and allowed America to accelerate the path to a unified nation
3) Lives were lost during the Civil War. But how many years of continued conflict and rebellion, especially between an industrial north and an agrarian south, both of whom relied heavily on each other and needed each other for trade... how many lives would we have lost?
4) Let's not rule out that punting on this issue wouldn't have led to an eventual rebellion. Especially as an agrarian south that was losing money from an increasingly less profitable slave trade wanted more.

The idea that the industrial revolution would have ended the civil war is based on pie-in-the-sky logic. We lost lives. But look at the benefits. It also saved the lives of slaves from maybe 20+ years of the continued practice of abuse and slavery. It kept the south from seceding from the union. It forced the north and south to learn to work together, which was incredibly important as the north began to industrialize while the south had superior agrarian resources. And it also kept us from 20 or so years of heated border tensions between the two regions. It arguably helped us accelerate expansion of the US as well as accelerate our industrial strength.

So no, I do not believe Lincoln did "terrible things" nor do I believe there was any other option but to go to war with the objective of creating a non-slave union.

__________________“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion"
Steven Weinberg~

I would say that I don't understand this view of Lincoln from you, but then, this is the exact same view of Lincoln that a southern, former slave-holder from 1866 held.

Lincoln was a protectionist. He knew that he could win the presidency without a single southern state, and he exploited it. He proposed high tariffs on imported goods to protect Northern manufacturers, and then spent most of the revenue from those tariffs, on pet projects for the North. His whole goal was to redistribute wealth from the south to the north through tariffs and corporate welfare.

The problem with his plan was that "these United States" was a voluntary union of sovereign states. The southern states began to secede because of his northern protectionism. When the southern states started seceding, he realize that his big tax and spend policies wouldn't work without them. So he blockaded southern ports in order to choke their economies and force them to rejoin the union. Instead, he forced the south to act in self defense and fire the first shot of the civil war.

Lincoln never wanted to end slavery. He made it very clear several times. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free any slaves at all. It only applied to states south of the Mason-Dixon line, which he had no authority over, and it was only a wartime tactic. The goal of the EP was to get the southern slaves to revolt against their owners, and to sway England to not ally with the southern states. Even after the civil war, Lincoln did not want to Emancipate the slaves form the northern states.

That right there is enough to make him the worst president of all-time, and that doesn't even touch on his blatant disregard for the constitution.
-He suspended habeas corpus without congress.
-He imprisoned federal judges for ruling against him.
-He deported a congressman for voting against his proposals.
-He used the military to detain Maryland Legislatures, so that they could not vote on secession.
-He shut down newspapers and arrested editors and reporters for not reporting the official government stories.
-He instituted the first draft and had deserters executed.
-He instituted the first income tax.

This came up in conversation last week. We were talking about the Lincoln film and someone said the words "civil war" as part of the description of what they liked about the movie. In the middle of what the dude was saying another person said "war of northern aggression", just stopped everyone interacting and he repeated it and said just want to get the correct name out there, no one said anything, after about 5-10 seconds of awkward silence the guy went on with his point about the movie.

I don't know what you think this accomplishes. You're literally mocking child abuse. If you ever wanted to come across as a morally-deprived lowlife, you're doing a great job.

No I am mocking you and those you defend. You know those who hid and protected those who committed these crimes under the watch of the Vicar of Christ. Mocking your beliefs and the lack of credibility you suffer from~

__________________“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion"
Steven Weinberg~

No I am mocking you and those you defend. You know those who hid and protected those who committed these crimes under the watch of the Vicar of Christ. Mocking your beliefs and the lack of credibility you suffer from~

Oh, so you're just lying when you say I defend child molesters. I see. You came across as mocking child molestation ("butt-hurt" and whatnot).